What happens when you start to fear the very people who are supposed to protect you?

Recently I read a news article about a woman who went to the hospital to get treatment. She had just been raped. Instead of getting sympathy and professional help, she was asked “Why did you come here? If you want to make a police report you’ll have to contact them.”. The woman then asked for a place to wait for the police and the nurses obliged by giving her a room where everyone could see her and according to her that was the end of it until police arrived. No single nurse stopped by to check on her, no doctor was notified that there was A RAPE VICTIM WAITING FOR TREATMENT. If the accounting of this woman of the events are true then this is truly a horrifying thing to read. The very mention of rape gets my stomach turning so how is it that a person who inhabits a position where compassion is not a matter of choice but a matter of oath (at least for these so called doctors), can nonchalantly dismiss this woman as nothing but a case number and send her on her “merry” way?

If the aforementioned story was unique event I would not worry so much. Unfortunately it is anything but. I see almost daily news articles about people being treated with inhuman level of disregard by hospital staff, government official and in some instances even the police. Patients are denied care, officials treat you like garbage and the police simply don’t have the time to serve your needs since they are too busy fining people for driving too fast since the government didn’t get enough money from speedsters last year.

Based on the last couple of years, these are the things I have learned about my society and the people who are supposed to serve it:

If you need to go to a hospital you better be dying or at least scream in pain. The nurses probably don’t care but they’ll give you pain meds to shut your whining

If you need the police either be prepared to wait several hours or don’t report the crime

The police might arrive earlier if you are like stabbed or something

Somebody robs you or starts beating you it’s better to acquiesce instead of fighting back since you are probably the one getting sued afterwards while the other guy gets out with a warning

Government officials are gods, period.

Politicians don’t stretch the truth anymore. They blatantly lie to your face and we are letting them.

Here’s the thing. The blame doesn’t lie on the people who need their moral compass rechecked… at least not alone. Costs are being cut everywhere. The police are too few, the nurses are even fewer, over worked and underpaid so I can understand some level of resentment towards your job. However it still doesn’t justify treating a patient like they are some kind of machine you are fixing. We are a very rule-oriented society. We like things orderly and in a specific manner. However when serving bureaucracy becomes more important than the person it is time to stop and re-evaluate your life choices. Today, it is more important to save money than save lives.

The end times are coming. How do I know this?

Because I am afraid. I am terrified to get sick because in hospital my dignity will be taken and I will become just a meaningless patient number. I’m afraid to become unemployed since the runaround the government will put me through in civilized society used to refer with a word “slavery”. I am terrified to get mugged, defend myself or even defend someone else in trouble because the police will punish me the most for my troubles. When peace is bought with fear instead of trust, that fear will turn to anger. Anger will eventually lead to hate and as a wise man once said, hate leads to suffering. I am afraid of the very people who are supposed to protect and serve my interest and when your own government and it’s infrastructure become an object of fear, it will soon turn into an enemy. Enough people believe in this, the revolution is ready to begin.

Finland used to be a place where you can trust people. You can trust that there is no corruption, police will come to your aid and hospitals will help. No more it seems. We are no longer individuals or even simple numbers. We are something much worse.